by M. Bennardo
Senjam’s vision blurred again, before the hissing creature could strike. The serpent vanished, and the limbs of the ashoka were empty as before.
A trick of the moonlight, his mind warned. That’s all it was.
But something bright glimmered out of the darkness. His trained hand acted on its own accord, drawing the dagger from his sash and deflecting the object with a shower of sparks. It lodged in a nearby tree; the sharp-edged ring of a chakram.
“The Grandfathers sent you,” said a familiar voice.
Rhadma Cholee stepped from the shadows of a giant banyan. Her left hand twirled a second chakram, ready to fling. Given the accuracy of her throw, he would’ve judged she had been feigning her blindness. But the silk ribbon was still tight across her eyes. How...? Then he saw the ochre-painted bindi on her forehead, and understood. She could sense him using her third eye, just as he had sensed the two thuggee the night before.
“I know who you are, Senjam Singh. I know why you’re here, though I doubt if you truly understand, yourself.”
Senjam gauged the distance between them. Not quite close enough to leap and stab, but if he could keep her talking.... “You’re with the Raj, I surmise.”
“I have that honor.”
“There’s precious little honor in what we do, woman.” He edged closer; she glided back just as smoothly.
“Did they tell you why they want the venom of the Gopti Serpent?” she asked. “Did they tell you what it does?”
He lowered the katar by a finger’s breadth. “Are you trying to spin words around me?”
“I thought you might want to know what you’re about to lose your life for.”
“Go on.”
“This is no ordinary venom we seek. The Gopti’s poison is so virulent, it travels across the invisible threads linking blood relations. Poison an uncle and his nephews die, as do his siblings, his mother, his father. Whole lineages are wiped out. Do you understand the implications?”
Senjam shook his head. “If such a poison existed, which it does not... the Grandfathers could kill the Raj, and all his potential heirs, by striking at a less-protected member of the family.”
“You do understand.”
He’d crept forward half a pace, and this time she did not move back. One more step would put him within striking distance. But he hesitated. “The Raj wants the venom as well. Does that make him less monstrous than the Grandfathers?”
“He wants it for protection. Out of the hands of people like your masters.”
Senjam laughed, marveling at her naiveté. “More likely, he would use it to slay the royal families of rival kingdoms. Or his enemies in court.”
Her lips drew back, as if in defiance of the idea. But she twirled the chakram slower than before.
“Enough!” The old charmer’s voice rattled off the ashoka branches. He stalked into the space between them, arms outstretched. “There is no bloodshed in this sacred place. As you both came seeking the Gopti Serpent, I will show you to Him. But draw no blood in His presence, unless you would like to sample the venom you speak of so covetously.”
Senjam glanced behind the charmer into the clearing; his congregation of Shudra had dispersed. “I’ll put my weapon aside if she does hers,” he said.
“Agreed.” Rhadma made the chakram disappear between the folds of her clothing. Senjam did likewise with his katar, and together they followed the charmer across the clearing.
“Quiet, on your lives,” he said, “and show the utmost respect.” He drew aside branches to indicate an ancient banyan. Senjam saw only shadowed outlines at first. Gradually, his eyes adjusted to the dimness, and fear iced the back of his neck. A fat cobra curled around the banyan’s trunk, easily as long as two tall men. But it wasn’t the serpent’s size that made Senjam doubt his perceptions. The Gopti’s sinuous neck split off like the branches of a tree to accommodate five separate heads, all with hoods flared.
How, in the Nineteen Hells, was he supposed to harvest venom from such a creature?
He took a tentative step forward, just as the tip of Rhadma’s cane appeared between his feet and wrenched with sudden force. He stumbled. Rattan smacked the top of his head, so hard it brought scarlet flashes of pain.
“I promised no bloodshed,” Rhadma said. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t strike you.”
She shifted and struck again, her curled toes slamming beneath his chin, knocking him backwards. As he tried to rise, she came hurtling down on his chest with all her weight, pinning him beneath two slender knees. His head lolled forward; she bent and brushed her lips against his own. For the briefest moment he felt her tongue slide between his teeth, then retreat.
Too late, he realized the significance. Searing fire spread across his throat. He rolled to one side and spat, trying to clear his mouth of all saliva.
“Vish Kanya,” he choked. “Poison woman.”
There was no pleasure in Rhadma’s cold smile as she pushed herself off and regained her feet.
Senjam had heard legends during his training with the Grandfathers; stories of girls selected at youth to ingest ever-greater quantities of poison. Those who survived into womanhood were able to slay with their own bodily fluids. A century before, the Raj of Thanjavir had been killed by one of his concubines in this way.
Now Rhadma’s poison was clawing through his veins, seeking to still his heart. But he, too, had been taking doses of toxins over the years, with the intention of building an immunity. The crimson powder he sipped with his evening tea mixed several of the deadliest types. He forced his mind to calm and let his body’s acquired defenses take over. At the same time, he thrashed and coughed as if near death. Rhadma paid little notice. She stood poised before the Gopti Serpent, her head cocked to one side as if contemplating how to best obtain the venom.
Another few heartbeats and he felt his pain lessening. Yes, the counter-toxins were doing their work.
He crept closer to where Rhadma stood, taking advantage of her attention on the serpent. He kicked from his prone position, sweeping Rhadma’s ankles out beneath her. He pounced as she fell, his limbs still feverish with poison, and managed to slide an arm around her wiry neck. She wriggled and tried to bite his forearm, but he simply increased the pressure against her throat. No amount of esoteric training could circumvent the need for air.
After several long moments she went limp beneath him. He maintained the hold until he felt satisfied her unconsciousness was genuine, then drew the katar and cut several strips from her sarong. These he used to bind her, using a series of intricate knots as proof against the double-jointed.
“You’re sparing her life?” the charmer said, watching with raised eyebrows.
“I intend to question her later.” Senjam again regarded the Gopti Serpent. He still faced the quandary of extracting venom from a five-headed snake. Killing it seemed like the safest option, though such an act would likely enrage the charmer. He started to reach under his sash for his own chakram... and stopped. The serpent held the same position as from before, motionless, not even flicking its various tongues. And there was something odd about the sheen of its scales in the moonlight. Too flat.
On impulse, he reached out to touch a coil. Wooden. He started with the realization: the monstrous serpent had been carved from the banyan’s exposed roots.
Behind him came soft laughter.
“Deception breeds deception,” said the charmer’s voice. Something in his timbre had changed, and Senjam felt a sudden loathing to turn around. “Look at me, oh Taker of Lives.” There was compulsion in that voice. Senjam’s head turned as if forced by invisible pressure. A humble brown snake lay coiled where the charmer had stood.
“Neither you, nor the woman are worthy of my venom,” the snake said. “It was intended to kill gods and asuras, not to be used in the petty squabbles of humanity. Still, you have both impressed me with your qualities, which are akin to my own brethren. For this reason I will spare your intrusion. Now observe.”
The sna
ke spread its hood as it raised up from the ground. Senjam felt a falling sensation in his stomach as the serpent kept rising, looming over him in an eye-blink, then towering above the ashoka grove. Now it appeared to dwarf Mount Muhundyana itself. Calm ophidian eyes, larger than the moon, gazed down at him with serene patience. The distance from one end of its flared hood to the other seemed to encompass all Creation.
Senjam, no longer able to doubt the reality of his own senses, gazed back. He did not feel small in relation to the snake, or to the universe itself.
He felt part of it.
* * *
When he woke, it was with the dull ache of Rhadma’s poison still in his joints. Sunlight flickered down through the banyan leaves, making a pattern of crescent-shaped shadows on the forest floor. There was no disorientation, no momentary panic as he recalled the events of the previous night, though he could not remember falling asleep.
How long had it been since he slept like that? So deep and dreamless, without startling awake at the faintest sound?
He rose, muscles pleasantly stiff, and wiped warm dew from his neck and shoulders. Rhadma lay half-trussed a short distance away, engaged in the act of chewing through her bindings with nimble teeth. She stopped when she heard him draw close. Behind her, the carving of the five-headed serpent kept its quiet vigil.
“If you’re going to kill me,” she said, “do it now. You’ll find torture a waste of effort.”
“I’m not going to kill you.” Senjam drew the katar and cut away the rest of her bindings.
She did not spring to attack. “You’re setting me free?”
“The snake-charmer said we were unworthy of the Gopti Serpent’s venom. He’s gone, and I doubt if we’ll see him again.”
“But....” Rhadma scrambled over to the carving. After a moment’s hesitation her hands reached out and touched the wooden scales. “I thought something seemed wrong. I could sense no movement; only the spirit of an old tree.”
“A trick. The charmer was testing us.”
The painted skin of her brow furrowed. “Perhaps you’re trying to trick me now. Perhaps you’ve already obtained the venom and left me alive so that I’ll return to the Raj and tell him all is safe.”
“Believe what you want.” Senjam turned his back to her and began walking from the grove. He felt the stab of old fears, knowing any moment she might decide to hurl a chakram into his spine. But subterfuge suddenly started to weary him. And worldly concerns seemed smaller against the grandeur of the mist-shrouded morning. Strange, that he could have come to this beautiful place and not truly seen any of it.
“Where are you going?” she called.
“Not back to the Grandfathers. Failure equates to only one thing with them. I suspect it is the same among agents of the Raj.”
“But can you forget all your obligations? Your years of training?”
He stopped. She couldn’t see the modest smile he knew was on his face, but perhaps she could hear it in his voice. “The old charmer showed me the larger scheme of things. I came here seeking poison, but instead I have found....”
“Found what?”
“Enlightenment, I think. I will contemplate further.”
His feet began walking again, away from the banyan forest, the plantation, following an unseen path towards the white peaks of Muhundyana.
Copyright © 2014 Garnett Elliot
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Garnett Elliot lives and works in Tucson, Arizona as a trauma clinician. Previous work has appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, and numerous online and print anthologies.
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COVER ART
“Kaybor Gate,” by Alex Ries
Alex Ries is a Melbourne-based illustrator and concept artist. His artworks have been featured by publishers including Clarkesworld Magazine, Pearson Education Canada, and the Discovery Channel. He worked with THQ’s Bluetongue Entertainment studio and contributed to four published titles. His studies in diverse visual media such as painting, 3D visualization, and film, coupled with an interest in biology and real-world technology, have fostered an artistic style that can not only accurately illustrate life from the real world but fictional life as well. View his work at www.alexries.com.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
ISSN: 1946-1076
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